H.264 includes a context adaptive variable length coding (CAVLC) encoding method. To maintain a given bitrate, the CAVLC encoding method needs to be performed in as short an amount of time as possible. The CAVLC encoding method includes a “run before” syntax element. The run before syntax element indicates a “run” of zeros “before” a next coefficient, taken from the perspective of traversing a linear array of quantized coefficients (QC) after the quantized coefficients have been forward scanned from the high frequency (AC) end to the low frequency end (DC). In a conventional scenario, the quantized coefficients are produced from a video source and encoded as a residual block using the CAVLC encoding method. In order to calculate the CAVLC encoding for a given run before, the number of zeros left must be known. The number of zeros left is initialized with the total number of zeros, as defined in H.264, and subsequentially decremented by the amount of each run. Both the run and zeros left are used as inputs into a look-up table (LUT), i.e., H.264 Table 9-10, that provides the CAVLC encoding. The conventional scenario sequentially performs the CAVLC encoding in software/hardware (i.e., performing run before encoding following coefficient encoding). The conventional scenario has a disadvantage that the throughput is negatively affected by sequentially performing the encoding.